Is the Wii U worth a second look? Ars readers weigh in

We asked what would get you interested in Nintendo's next. You answered.

Tomorrow, Nintendo is set to give us the final details on what we can expect from the Wii U's launch later this year. Yesterday and today, Ars readers shared their thoughts on what they want to hear from Nintendo, and what (if anything) could convince them to purchase the system, either at launch or after.

The more than 200 comments we received ran the gamut from Nintendo haters to self-described fanboys, with plenty of people falling somewhere in between. Here are some of the most interesting, thought-provoking, or just representative comments from the Ars readership.

Fool me once, shame on me...

By far the most common sentiment among the Ars readership was to hold off on the Wii U simply because Nintendo had failed to deliver a compelling experience with the original Wii. Commenter superslav23 said the experience of the Wii taught him to expect "the same games slightly changed to use the gimmicky tablet." damarv said he loved the Wii's motion controls as a concept, but complained that "rather than improving my physical abilities, I ended up jiggling a controller around."

Ckempo summed up the feelings of quite a few commenters that eagerly waited in line to buy the Wii on launch day: "Waggle waggle repeat was not what I thought I was signing up for when I stood in the rain outside GAME that day." And commenter Evan E echoed many others who found Nintendo's games "just too cloyingly cutesy" for his tastes.

But a few commenters actually said their experience owning a Wii made them more excited to pick up the Wii U. "I actually still really like the Wii and think it gets a bit of a bad rap," commenter MD1500 wrote. "Even now, I play it regularly, and own about 30 games for it, which are some of the best games I've ever played on any system. None of them are waggle-based mini games."

Hardware power concerns

Given Ars Technica's tech-heavy audience, it's no surprise that concerns about the Wii U's hardware power were prevalent among many commenters. While Nintendo hasn't offered much in the way of specific hardware specs yet, the widespread rumors that the system would be comparable in power to the current generation of systems seems to be in the forefront of many readers' minds.

AngelZero was even more blunt about how much sheer hardware horsepower mattered to his interest in a Nintendo system. "You release a truly next-gen console with ridiculous power and maybe I will give a damn about your gimmicky input devices. Until then I will stick with systems that can deliver the audio and video quality while still providing amazing stories and adventures."

For the kiddies

The most enthusiastic support for a Wii U purchase among Ars readers came, perhaps unsurprisingly, from a group of commenters that saw the system as a perfect fit for their kid-filled families. "As a core gamer, the Wii U does not interest me at all," commenter ElectricBlue said. "But, as a father, the possibility exists that I will be buying one within a few years."

"Having grown up purely on Nintendo and now adult of three kids, Nintendo's titles make for perfect bonding tools for me and my little guys," commenter JonnyC added. AaronSullivan rattled off a sizeable list of the Wii franchises he loved to play together with his wife, 7-year-old, and 3-year-old as reasons to get a Wii U on launch day. "Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Wii Sports Resort. We all love the games. It's going to continue on the Wii U with some new perspectives via the GamePad and it'll all look sharper to boot."

For at least one reader, though, the prospect of getting his kids to share the system's single touchscreen GamePad sounds like a nightmare. "Last thing I want is to be fighting with the kids, or the kids fighting amongst themselves, over who gets to use the fancy new gamepad and who gets the old junk," commenter Vipre77 wrote. "My kids are 2 and 5 years old and are incapable of rational argument. The older one will share when asked, but the arguments start when the younger one won't give up her turn. She's in the "that's mine!" phase right now. That is a can of worms I don't even want to think about bringing into my house..."

Those Nintendo franchises

Even among some of the most fervent Wii U skeptics in the Ars readership, there seemed to be a grudging acceptance that a few of Nintendo's long-running franchises would provide can't-miss gaming experiences that would be worth buying a system for all on their own. It's actually pretty incredible how much just a few major series seem to be driving potential Wii U purchases among Ars readers.

"Give me a proper Mario game (in the vein of Mario 64), Mario kart, and a proper Zelda game and I'll buy one," commenter whiskeytab admitted. "I'm a sucker for Zelda and Mario Kart games so I'll be picking one up at some point." LtKernelPanic offered. "I'm completely uninterested until about four years from now, at which time I'll throw sense out the window in favor of spending $50 plus the cost of the console at the time to sate my Zelda addiction for another five years," swholliday wrote before going to his weekly Zelda Anonymous meeting.

But other commenters suggested that even their favorite Nintendo franchises weren't enough to get them to invest in Nintendo hardware anymore. "There's nothing Nintendo can do to get me interested in the Wii U," user Mechatoast wrote. "However, I'd be very interested if they released Metroid, Kirby, or Zelda on non-Nintendo hardware." Infinity4011, meanwhile, said that despite the appeal of games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, he didn't "see myself spending $300+ on a console for two games" (no word on what specific price point would justify buying a system for just two games).

Still other commenters seemed to be looking for a very specific incarnation of their favorite classic Nintendo game before plunking down for the Wii U. "I want a 3D, HD remake of the ORIGINAL Legend of Zelda. Gold plated in all its glory!" zer0x1A4 declared. "I would buy a Wii U just for the chance to play an HD 3D version of [The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past], even if it meant having it collect dust for the rest of it's life!" deurges enthused. "I'd probably buy it also if there's a remake of Pokemon Snap..."

Whither third-party developers?

Outside of those lucrative Nintendo-made franchises, many commenters said they were worried that third-party publishers would be hesitant to bring their best games to the Wii U. "The plague of quick and dirty ports is inevitable" user unusualoddity wrote, saying that most developers will just tack on lackluster tablet controls to say the game has been "customized" for the system. "If there is any hope to be found, it's with Indies. And only if the system is open enough will you attract enough of them to really discover revolutionary ideas."

Slackerofthesilicon agreed that innovative outside support would make or break Nintendo's system. "The biggest issue I have, though, isn't with Nintendo itself, it's all the other developers that won't take Nintendo's hardware seriously," he wrote. "If the Wii wasn't absolutely smothered in 'me too waggle' games and had more games like the Metroid series, I know that the Wii would have done far better - graphics be damned. Look at the onslaught of independent developers lately! Look at mobile games! It's not the graphics that are driving them, it's the innovative gameplay, mechanics, story telling."

The GamePad promise

Nintendo is selling its touchscreen GamePad hard as a major reason to look at the Wii U, and a few commenters are using the promise of asymmetic multiplayer gameplay as a reason to look into the system. User gforce85 admitted that "[I've] been dreaming about 'asynchronous multiplayer' since I was about 8 years old," while commenter Arlondiluthel was confident the tablet skeptics would be proven wrong in the end. "Anyone who's writing off the 'tabtroller' as a gimmick, remember what was said about the DS before it launched? People said that the second screen was a gimmick, and the DS line has been Nintendo's best-selling system ever."

Commenter MaJoR pointed to a recent Penny Arcade comic about a mythical Wii U D&D game as evidence of what Nintendo should be looking for. "Instead of just being just like the other guys, they need to embrace those differences, and leverage them to make awesome games," he wrote. "That is what the Wii did, and that is what the Wii U will have to do."

But a few commenters took one look at that massive controller and thought there's no way it could make for comfortable gaming. "The Wii U controller looks like an ergonomic nightmare, much too big and heavy to hold up for extended periods," commenter WiseWeasel observed. "Gaming on an iPad is bad enough, but this is ridiculous. How Nintendo has been able to go this far with such an impractical design, it's difficult to know, and sad to behold. This is like the Power Glove revisited." trikster2 worried that the large tablet controller wouldn't be as easy for his kids to use to use as the Wii's small Remote and Nunchuk.

Tough crowd

In the end, the most damaging comment from Nintendo's perspective might have come from reader burndive. A self-admitted Nintendo fanboy who has owned every system the company put out, burndive said he got a chance to try out the Wii U early through a Club Nintendo promotion, and came away "concerned about the quality of games I can expect from this console." His lengthy comment lays out worries about the hardware power of the system, and cites Nintendo's spotty history of online integration and indie development. "Microsoft, in contrast to Nintendo, does online very well, including encouraging indie developers to create fun and interesting downloadable games. Nintendo tried to do this, but they aren't a very easy company for small developers to work with."

While burndive said he'd be getting a Wii U for games like Zelda, Pikmin 3, and NintendoLand, the system still wasn't an automatic day one purchase for him. "If they price it at $200 and include Nintendo Land, I'll stand in line and buy it at launch."

"...Look at mobile games! It's not the graphics that are driving them, it's the innovative gameplay, mechanics, story telling."

Not really more like accessibility (you always have your phone with you and free time on the toilet) and a incredibly cheap price of usually $1 - $5.

Most mobile games are just clones of flash games that have been on the net for years and stripped down versions of console versions like many of the racing games. Mobile games are not known for innovative gameplay, mechanics and especially storytelling, if any of that happens it is most certainly the exception to the rule. No one talks about mobile games, they talk about the amazing experiences, story telling, mechanics and gameplay they have on consoles and the PC.

Graphics are driving them too. People went ape shit when they heard about the new Zelda game, guess what they were talking about? The graphics, the new gameplay brought by the more powerful Wii U ...wait a second I thought you were telling me for years graphics and computational power don't matter, now all of a sudden a Zelda game comes out on a system much like the 360 and PS3 and it's the Best. Thing. Evar? Talk about hypocrisy, thought "it didn't matter".

Guess what if Nintendo wasn't dragging its ass in the mud you would have already had that Zelda game 6-7 years ago. If graphics "don't matter" and the power of the system "don't matter" then why didn't Mario64 come out for the SNES? Why didn't Zelda A Link to the Past come out on the NES or Super Metroid on the NES?

Guess what graphics and the power of the system do matter and they make it possible to bring new amazing experiences and gameplay mechanics. Graphics don't always matter like with Dwarf Fortress, but even DF was improved with a graphics pack and other utilities for the vast majority, just like a Zelda game will be improved on a more powerful and capable platform.

If Nintendo stopped making hardware and put the new Zelda out on the "PS4" and "720", it would be a better experience and more capable game, just like people are expecting the new game on the Wii U to be amazing now that it's on the equivalent of a PS3/360 type system. Nintendo's low end and greedy hardware philosophy nowadays holds the games on it, and its own IP's back. Someone needs to take Nintendo out back and do it in so it can get back to what it does best - make games. It's technologically backwards hardware is holding itself and the industry back.

Wii Sports was used for Physical Therapy for my daughter after her injury. We had to do some of the sports at home as well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j19yo2YE8XY). Now days, we only use the Wii for the Mario games (kart, world, etc). Unfortunately, Nintendo stopped creating Mario games for the Wii.

Due to Nintendo's lack of interest of creating Mario games for the Wii(U), I doubt the Wii-U will be any good.

Wii Sports was used for Physical Therapy for my daughter after her injury. We had to do some of the sports at home as well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j19yo2YE8XY). Now days, we only use the Wii for the Mario games (kart, world, etc). Unfortunately, Nintendo stopped creating Mario games for the Wii.

Due to Nintendo's lack of interest of creating Mario games for the Wii(U), I doubt the Wii-U will be any good.

I suspect most of the experiences will be similar to what we already have on the Nintendo DS, when you see it the Wii U is really just a consolized version of the DS (Think about it, it has the touch screen, the camera, the mic, like the 3DS the camera on the back and the accelerometer, the only thing it has is that it is disconnected from the hinge and top screen - being your TV so you can use the camera for more things) and most of what we've seen so far is just what we get on the DS with the extra screen. It has a few more tricks but you get the point. Nintendo is not being innovative, it's reusing old ideas all packaged in a haphazard collection of as well old technology.

I think a certain amount of "tech angst" is to be expected, honestly. I mean, any console thread is filled with a certain disdain for consoles in general. So some of the negativity seems more due to the audience then the public sentiment.

For me, it's the games. Give me a great Zelda game, it makes a purchase more likely. Give me a Smash Bros. game I can easily set up with friends across the country, it's going to move that needle. Nintendo makes great games, and buying their hardware is that barrier-- one I'm willing to cross if the games justify it. But, and this is a major but...they haven't sold me on those games yet.

The XBox is, for me, the best living room companion I own. I game a couple times a week. I watch Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go, ESPN, Crackle, or one of the other apps EVERY SINGLE DAY. For me, the next XBox already has a built-in secondary reason to own it. A better living room companion (and yeah, I'm partially sold because the 360 gets to go in the bedroom as a media center) is a solid benefit regardless of the games.

Nintendo, at this point, doesn't have a compelling reason for me to buy their other than the games. But those games haven't emerged. So there's no great rush for me. The first game console I owned was the N64, playing Ocarina of Time. I probably only bought 10 games for it, but I played those games for years, even once I had enough for a PlayStation. I bought the Game Cube, knowing that there would only be a 10 or so that would get used versus my PS2. I waited in line for a Wii, expecting to buy that same 10 or so titles. I own 4. None that I've replayed.

Nope, it's not worth a second look. Nintendo lost me when they decided to stop making games for their core audience to make a bet on the casuals. It paid off but the mobile industry is quickly chipping away at that market and everyone can see nintendo is scrambling to fix the damage. Sucks to be greedy.

Waiting for the day that Nintendo goes third party like Sega, and brings the games people have been wanting to the consoles people have been wanting them on.

Why would they do that when they sell more hardware and more software than anyone else?

allgood2386 wrote:

Nope, it's not worth a second look. Nintendo lost me when they decided to stop making games for their core audience to make a bet on the casuals.

These are the comments that make me reasonably confident the people who complain about Nintendo catering to the casuals have never actually bothered to check out the games available, or have some weird alternate history memory of the GameCube where Nintendo released shooters and horror games every month.

Not to mention lesser-known stuff like Sin and Punishment 2, Punch-Out, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Fire Emblem, Battalion Wars 2 (with online!) etc. Obviously you might consider all these games "casual", but then they were just as casual on the GameCube weren't they?

Which is all just to say, if you like Nintendo games, get a Wii U. If you don't, don't. But it's not like Nintendo tricked anyone with the Wii - they held up their end of the bargain and then got blamed when third parties released shovelware and rail shooters made by their "C" teams.

Not a long list you have thier. Yes Nintendo did their normal propities, but due to crappy hardware and worthless networking and matchmaking no one else did and comparing the wii library (i never once said anything bad about the game cube) to the ps3 or 360 is a damn far reach. The few worthwhile 3rd party titles that i care about (and clearly others) that made it to the wii were missing features, didn't look as good, and as a general rule (exceptions exsist) were not as good. :-(

Not a long list you have thier. Yes Nintendo did their normal propities, but due to crappy hardware and worthless networking and matchmaking no one else did and comparing the wii library (i never once said anything bad about the game cube) to the ps3 or 360 is a damn far reach. The few worthwhile 3rd party titles that i care about (and clearly others) that made it to the wii were missing features, didn't look as good, and as a general rule (exceptions exsist) were not as good. :-(

You said they started catering to casuals with the Wii, which I was responding to by comparing Nintendo's standard "real" or "core" games on the Wii to what they did the previous gen on the Cube. Now you're saying that their games aren't as good as the PS3/360, when I never even mentioned the 360/PS3 in my original post. Good try though?

Obviously 3rd parties weren't as good. There was hardly a single third party that put forth real effort - maybe Red Steel 2, or Monster Hunter 3, or Last Story - but not much. But then I said that in my original post so, yeah, agreed.

Not a long list you have thier. Yes Nintendo did their normal propities, but due to crappy hardware and worthless networking and matchmaking no one else did and comparing the wii library (i never once said anything bad about the game cube) to the ps3 or 360 is a damn far reach. The few worthwhile 3rd party titles that i care about (and clearly others) that made it to the wii were missing features, didn't look as good, and as a general rule (exceptions exsist) were not as good. :-(

You said they started catering to casuals with the Wii, which I was responding to. Now you're saying that their games aren't as good as the PS3/360, when I never even mentioned the 360/PS3 in my original post. Good try though?

Obviously 3rd parties weren't as good. There was hardly a single third party that put forth real effort - maybe Red Steel 2, or Monster Hunter 3, or Last Story - but not much. But then I said that in my original post so, yeah, agreed.

ok, completely ignore the fact that the system was under powered and missing features because they wanted to sell it for cheap to casuals, causing the hardware to date quickly, have a shitty control scheme, and then play token service with a few good games. Clearly I, the author, and a good chunk of the gaming community are completely insane and making this up and were hoping for nintendo to fail.

The reason a 3rd party didn't make an effort has been documented time and time again. It was a shitty system for players who wanted top end graphics, and multiplier, and a real controller aka the non-casual. Shitty systems get less games made for them, not hard to understand.

The reason a 3rd party didn't make an effort has been documented time and time again. It was a shitty system for players who wanted top end graphics, and multiplier, and a real controller aka the non-casual. Shitty systems get less games made for them, not hard to understand.

Not a long list you have thier. Yes Nintendo did their normal propities, but due to crappy hardware and worthless networking and matchmaking no one else did and comparing the wii library (i never once said anything bad about the game cube) to the ps3 or 360 is a damn far reach. The few worthwhile 3rd party titles that i care about (and clearly others) that made it to the wii were missing features, didn't look as good, and as a general rule (exceptions exsist) were not as good. :-(

You said they started catering to casuals with the Wii, which I was responding to. Now you're saying that their games aren't as good as the PS3/360, when I never even mentioned the 360/PS3 in my original post. Good try though?

Obviously 3rd parties weren't as good. There was hardly a single third party that put forth real effort - maybe Red Steel 2, or Monster Hunter 3, or Last Story - but not much. But then I said that in my original post so, yeah, agreed.

ok, completely ignore the fact that the system was under powered and missing features because they wanted to sell it for cheap to casuals, causing the hardware to date quickly, have a shitty control scheme, and then play token service with a few good games. Clearly I, the author, and a good chunk of the gaming community are completely insane and making this up and were hoping for nintendo to fail.

The reason a 3rd party didn't make an effort has been documented time and time again. It was a shitty system for players who wanted top end graphics, and multiplier, and a real controller aka the non-casual. Shitty systems get less games made for them, not hard to understand.

Yeah, I think you and a lot of other folks are caught up in your own narrative and never spent much time in the quality end of the Wii library.

You said that Nintendo made this big shift to the casual gamer. So, are you arguing that Nintendo made fewer core games than previous gens? If so, I think you're wrong as I listed out for you. Or are you arguing that the games they did make were lower in quality than previous gens, e.g. Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 and Donkey Kong Country were secretly terrible games despite what everyone said at the time? Again, I think you'd be wrong.

So I think you're left with, "well, the hardware wasn't what core gamers want, so therefore it doesn't matter that Nintendo made as many or more great games as they ever do because without 720p I go blind and I never play single player games and not having the ability to swear at people online in Mario Kart makes me angry." But all of this stuff about hardware ignores that a. the control scheme was really demonstrably superior for aiming, as RE4 showed and b. if you can't get over the resolution, that's kind of your own fault and c. when people actually tried, they made great games on the Wii. I mean, if the hardware choices made it impossible to make great core games as you say, how does Xenoblade exist?

At the end of the day the faults of the Wii's library lie with third parties' repeated decisions to make crappy games. Nintendo is just as supportive of their "core" audience as they always have been. Hence my statement about the Wii U a couple posts ago - get it if you like Nintendo games. Otherwise, don't.

Not a long list you have thier. Yes Nintendo did their normal propities, but due to crappy hardware and worthless networking and matchmaking no one else did and comparing the wii library (i never once said anything bad about the game cube) to the ps3 or 360 is a damn far reach. The few worthwhile 3rd party titles that i care about (and clearly others) that made it to the wii were missing features, didn't look as good, and as a general rule (exceptions exsist) were not as good. :-(

You said they started catering to casuals with the Wii, which I was responding to. Now you're saying that their games aren't as good as the PS3/360, when I never even mentioned the 360/PS3 in my original post. Good try though?

Obviously 3rd parties weren't as good. There was hardly a single third party that put forth real effort - maybe Red Steel 2, or Monster Hunter 3, or Last Story - but not much. But then I said that in my original post so, yeah, agreed.

ok, completely ignore the fact that the system was under powered and missing features because they wanted to sell it for cheap to casuals, causing the hardware to date quickly, have a shitty control scheme, and then play token service with a few good games. Clearly I, the author, and a good chunk of the gaming community are completely insane and making this up and were hoping for nintendo to fail.

The reason a 3rd party didn't make an effort has been documented time and time again. It was a shitty system for players who wanted top end graphics, and multiplier, and a real controller aka the non-casual. Shitty systems get less games made for them, not hard to understand.

Yeah, I think you and a lot of other folks are caught up in your own narrative and never spent much time in the quality end of the Wii library.

You said that Nintendo made this big shift to the casual gamer. So, are you arguing that Nintendo made fewer core games than previous gens? If so, I think you're wrong as I listed out for you. Or are you arguing that the games they did make were lower in quality than previous gens, e.g. Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 and Donkey Kong Country were secretly terrible games despite what everyone said at the time? Again, I think you'd be wrong.

So I think you're left with, "well, the hardware wasn't what core gamers want, so therefore it doesn't matter that Nintendo made as many or more great games as they ever do because without 720p I go blind and I never play single player games and not having the ability to swear at people online in Mario Kart makes me angry." But all of this stuff about hardware ignores that a. the control scheme was really demonstrably superior for aiming, as RE4 showed and b. if you can't get over the resolution, that's kind of your own fault and c. when people actually tried, they made great games on the Wii. I mean, if the hardware choices made it impossible to make great core games as you say, how does Xenoblade exist?

At the end of the day the faults of the Wii's library lie with third parties' repeated decisions to make crappy games. Nintendo is just as supportive of their "core" audience as they always have been. Hence my statement about the Wii U a couple posts ago - get it if you like Nintendo games. Otherwise, don't.

allgood2386 originally argued that "Nintendo decided to stop making games for their core audience to make a bet on the casuals." When he realized that he was beaten, he switched his argument to reflect the "poor quality" of Nintendo games. You can't really win an argument when the subject at hand is subjective as game quality. No matter how intuitive the motion controls may or may not be, his opinion might just be that they're simply gimmicks. You can't disprove someone's opinion and allgood2386 doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would accept a well rationalized argument if it conflicts with his own opinions.

I wish people would quit talking about processing power as if all it improves is graphics. You couldn't be further from the truth. Play dead rising on 360 then wii and tell me the only difference is the graphics.every aspect of gameplay is dictated by available processing power.there's a reason wiiu isn't usong the same cpu as the nes

There are other things happening in the gaming space apart from WiiU, Kyle. Maybe you could consider covering them?

First line of article: "Tomorrow, Nintendo is set to give us the final details on what we can expect from the Wii U's launch later this year." You don't think that a console launch is worth a bit more coverage than the random game launch of the week?

allgood2386 originally argued that "Nintendo decided to stop making games for their core audience to make a bet on the casuals." When he realized that he was beaten, he switched his argument to reflect the "poor quality" of Nintendo games. You can't really win an argument when the subject at hand is subjective as game quality. No matter how intuitive the motion controls may or may not be, his opinion might just be that they're simply gimmicks. You can't disprove someone's opinion and allgood2386 doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would accept a well rationalized argument if it conflicts with his own opinions.

Telekenesis wrote:"I suspect most of the experiences will be similar to what we already have on the Nintendo DS, when you see it the Wii U is really just a consolized version of the DS (Think about it, it has the touch screen, the camera, the mic, like the 3DS the camera on the back and the accelerometer, the only thing it has is that it is disconnected from the hinge and top screen - being your TV so you can use the camera for more things) and most of what we've seen so far is just what we get on the DS with the extra screen. It has a few more tricks but you get the point. Nintendo is not being innovative, it's reusing old ideas all packaged in a haphazard collection of as well old technology."

I couldn't agree more. This is the reason why I'm not interested in the Wii U and why I am super satisfied with my 3DS. It's basically a DS with Wii graphics in 3D. The Wii U will be the same with more power. And if I learned anything from the Wii is that powerful graphics don't matter. The games are all that matter.

I think backward compatibility *with* either high quality upscaling or rendered at 1080p with anti-aliasing etc of Wii games would help shift the consoles themselves (and would make me buy one) since many people have quite a few existing games. However it may canabalise sales of software.

If they had simply launched a WiiHD a while back I would have bought one just for convenience of HDMI and crisper graphics.

Sneered and mocked the NES as a C-64 elitist as a teenager.Owned and loved the SNES as a new husband and father.Ignored the N64 in favour of the Saturn and PSX. (and so did the kids.)Ignored the Cube in favour of the Dreamcast and PS2.Bought and loved the Wii, fell in love with Trauma Center, one of the best uses of the new controller.

Now a middle aged and divorced gamer, I am somewhat interested in the WiiU but not going to buy at launch unless there is much stronger 3rd party support utilizing the tablet controller in unique and fun ways. Nintendos First Party games are always strong, but never so strong that I cant wait a couple years and play a lot cheaper. Only some truely new and fun uses for the new controller will sell me.

Whats the defining thing that stands out to me looking back at this? THE SPECS DO NOT MATTER.

This is a game console, not a PC. I turn to my PC for bleeding edge graphics and powerful new tech, not my consoles. As long as the WiiU can push out a similar 1080p signal as every other current console can, thats good enough for me on my teevee. Nintendo has learned their lesson there methinks. Also the art styles of games like World of Warcraft, Torchlight, and Trauma Center/Team have shown that bleeding edge tech is NOT always required to provide a compelling graphic experience.

If the WiiU can also run older Wii games at an upscaled 1080p resolution, that would also be a strong selling point. Added value is valueable.

Wii Sports was used for Physical Therapy for my daughter after her injury. We had to do some of the sports at home as well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j19yo2YE8XY). Now days, we only use the Wii for the Mario games (kart, world, etc). Unfortunately, Nintendo stopped creating Mario games for the Wii.

Due to Nintendo's lack of interest of creating Mario games for the Wii(U), I doubt the Wii-U will be any good.

Its launching. Yes LAUNCHING for the fist time in years with a Mario game

Graphics are driving them too. People went ape shit when they heard about the new Zelda game, guess what they were talking about? The graphics, the new gameplay brought by the more powerful Wii U ...wait a second I thought you were telling me for years graphics and computational power don't matter, now all of a sudden a Zelda game comes out on a system much like the 360 and PS3 and it's the Best. Thing. Evar? Talk about hypocrisy, thought "it didn't matter".

Graphics matter, they're just not everything. In fact, I consider them one of the less important aspects of a game. Yes, it helps if a game looks great. Yes, it takes away from a game if it looks crummy. But I'd play the game with crummy graphics and great gameplay over the game with great graphics and awful gameplay.

Take Borderlands, for example - that game pushed the graphical limitations of the 360 in absolutely no way (that's not to say the graphics are bad - they're just not good.) But its one of my favorites because its so fun to play!

For $300, you could have literally more than 10x the GPU of this console. Again, I mean that literally. More importantly, PCs are...you guessed it...PCs. They *also* run games (as it so happens, much better than consoles modeled after 2005 hardware). If you're expecting a "next-gen" experience from this thing, you're going to be massively disappointed...rumor has it that the CPU is even slower than Xenon. That means that this console will perform even worse than XBOX 360...which means even more framerate struggles and inferior gameplay. "PCs are expensive." The initial investment is higher...and you'll recoup that money quickly by saving tons of money on the games (ever heard of "razor and blades"...?), as legal downloads (Amazon, e.g.) tend to cost a quarter or less of what Gamestop, e.g., charges for console discs (after a couple months on the market, anyway). Heed my advice...you'll be glad you did.

I would think graphics matter (exceedingly so) to a subset of gamers within a certain age range -- granted that range probably makes up for a large portion of the gaming public, 13-30ish

40+ Not so much. Game-play and decent graphics will do.<13 Young enough that game-play is still likely more important than oooh-shiney.

We picked up a Wii (2nd-hand, cheap) and have been happy enough with it, although Nintendo's online match-up system is spotty at best (painful at worst). The virtual console is pretty much junk and filled ti the brim with same -- although there are a handful of gems.

I've definitely got my money's worth out of the system and for the most part all I've played is:Mario Cart, 2KHockey, and Soul Calibur II (via the Wii's GC compatibility).

I doubt we'll even look at Nintendo's next iteration until Mario Cart is released, and even then there will have to be something else that makes up for WiiU's lack of GC-compatibility. There's also been too many games that many people (reviews, store-reps) have claimed are "awesome" that I found to either be tedious or the opposite of "fun" --- e.g. Donkey Kong Country and Smash Bros and pretty much any other racing game I've tried.

I actually just bought a used Sega Genesis on Amazon, along with Blades of Vengeance... hopefully it's half as good as I remember --- now that is a title that would be worthy of a remake :-)

Heck we might wind up buying a bunch of old sega games and then who cares about the Wii-U.

Malth, you're either a liar (a ardent fanboy) or are simply misinformed. Don't fill people's heads with nonsense. Wii U's GPU is, at the very best given developer reports, 50% more powerful than Xenos (which explains why it can't run games like Mass Effect 3 at 1080p, even at 30fps). Its CPU, however, has been reported to be less powerful than Xenon (if you don't know what Xenos and Xenon are, I recommend Wikipedia). Unfortunately, many games are CPU-limited on 2005 consoles...which means that Wii U will run those titles *even worse* (lower frame rates) than 2005 consoles. I'd suggest altering your (ridiculous) expectations to avoid massive disappointment...you're welcome. (Remember this comment when you discover the facts.)

I didn't mean for my comment to be scathing, but I did observe some pretty critical things about Nintendo's light-hardware (but low price) strategy, and lack of compelling online interaction.

The fact is, there's a reason I've stuck with Nintendo all of these years: no one makes fun games like they do. I criticize because I want them to be better, not because I think they're crap and I don't want them anymore.

But what Wii-gamer gives a rat's ass about Mass-Effect 3? I mean seriously.

Nintendo isn't the go-to source for FPS gaming, but that's not the point.

A console that isn't powerful enough to play that game today won't be able to do a good job on the next Ghostbusters or Little Big Planet either. Game complexity increases steadily, and this is going to be Nintendo's living room platform for at least the next five years. You can say "good games don't need cutting edge graphics" till you're blue in the face but that won't change the fact that games with advanced AI or physics are going to be nerfed (or unavailable) on this console.

We don't care about Mass Effect 3. We care about the fact that Wii U can't run it at 1080p because it has 150% or less the GPU of 2005 consoles. In other words, if you desperately need this console, wait until January (when it's being cleared from shelves at $99.99).

These are the comments that make me reasonably confident the people who complain about Nintendo catering to the casuals have never actually bothered to check out the games available, or have some weird alternate history memory of the GameCube where Nintendo released shooters and horror games every month.[...]But it's not like Nintendo tricked anyone with the Wii - they held up their end of the bargain and then got blamed when third parties released shovelware and rail shooters made by their "C" teams.

I don't know that that's entirely true. You're pegging hardcore versus casual as if it were an unmoving set of criteria. It's not.

If you're looking at the first party game library and the first game library alone, I suppose that Nintendo did just as well as it always has. If you're looking at third party offerings, they were way, way behind. And that is due largely in part to the fact that if you're looking at hardware capabilities, they were way behind there, as well. We could argue about casual versus hardcore, what those two terms actually mean, whether one is negative and the other positive, and so on, but suffice to say that Nintendo was lacking third party titles and hardware power.

But perhaps more importantly, Nintendo maintained course on a few crucial things: online play, online store, and courtship of indie developers. And for Nintendo, maintaining course on those is the same thing as falling way behind. I think those things play into the negative perception of Nintendo as much as anything.

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Which is all just to say, if you like Nintendo games, get a Wii U. If you don't, don't.

Which, I think, is a fair and accurate assessment. Personally, I think I ran out of interest in Mario with Mario Sunshine, and I ran out of interest in Zelda with Wind Waker. I tried playing the Zelda that came after that, but I just lost interest. I think their flagship franchises are mostly dead to me, sadly.

burndive, you're ignoranant and/or in denial. I'm sorry, but there's just no other way to say it. There were literally hundreds of great games on XBOX/PS2 that never saw the light of day on Gamecube, and Wii...? I don't think I need to state (I will anyway) that Wii has a "good game" library of about as many titles that I can count on my fingers. Let's get real. You missed out on literally hundreds of great games during the "Wii generation," and Nintendo recognizes that to be a problem...that's why you have "XBOX 360 1.5 or less" being released in November (with a mock 360 controller, no less)...Nintendo knows they're dead without it (and they're dead anyway...at least in the hardware department). Bring on Mario, Zelda, and Metroid on PC next year, Nintendo!

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.